I bought a toy castle in 1995 or so because I thought that it would be suitable for use in 28mm gaming. I liked both its modular nature and its low price so much that I then went back and bought three more castles, just so that I could make one huge castle at some indeterminate point in the future.

Then like many other projects the castle then got moved to the back burner for some forgotten reason. Since then it was dug out of storage twice. In 1998 the entire thing had a coat of textured paint and some minor structural work done to it. It then sat in a box until 2001 when I decided that I wanted to turn it into a pulp sci-fi space castle. Progress on that was limited to an evening or two sticking somewhat unconvincing leftover kit parts to castle sections while a friend sculpted a face over one of the windows. And that was as far as I got with that.

Fast forward through a decade of reality TV and iPods right up to fully socially networked 2011.

I wanted a post-apocalyptic type fort for a Mad Max/Gorkamorka style gaming weekend that I am planning in the summer. Rather than try to build one from scratch (which would take ages and which I really just don’t have the patience for these days) I decided to post-apocalyptify my castle.

Some of the main influences were Mad Max II: The Road Warrior, the Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serials and a bit of Masters of the Universe thrown in too. Additionally these images from the GW Gorkamorka rules were in the back of my mind most of the time.

Disclaimer: There is no getting away from the fact that the model is a medieval castle and that it will look like a castle in the end, one way or another. The amount of work required to remove all trace of the models castle-y nature would be huge and probably better spent building something from scratch, which I don’t have the time or patience for these days. If that compromise of is something that will bother your aesthetic sensibilities, then I politely suggest that you don’t read any further 😛

On the other hand if compromising with available materials in order to get something amusing and functional ready for use with your toy soldiers in a reasonable timeframe appeals, then maybe you might enjoy seeing how this project goes.

This post is already too long, so I will include a shot of the entire thing as it stood at the start of the project.

To be continued soon. Some zombies next if I can get suitable weather conditions for photos.